An independent observer of the Forest Stewartship Council

Yesterday, FSC organised a side-event at the Ninth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity in Bonn. Activists from Global Forests Coalition and World Rainforest Movement made their voices heard at the side event.

FSC's panel responded to a series of questions from the moderator, Stefan Salvador, FSC's Chain of Custody Programme Manager. Hans Schipulle, Chairman of the Congo Basin Forestry Partnership, told us that modern methods of forest management are carbon neutral or even carbon negative, although he provided no evidence to back up this statement...[Continue]

Earlier this year, we reported on SmartWood's certification of Hancock Victoria Plantations, Australia. We have been asked to post this update by Anthony Amis, a local expert. Further images and details are available at Hancock Watch.

Hancock Victorian Plantations and Victoria's Department of Sustainability and Environment undermine Community Agreement

In October 2006, an historic Heads of Agreement was signed concerning rainforest protection in Victoria's Strzelecki Ranges...[Continue]

A new website launched recently reveals the destruction of Massachusetts public forests by clear-cutting, even though they have been FSC certified. Clearcutting MA Public Lands shows a series of aerial photographs taken by a local activist.

The more than half million acres of Massachusetts Public Forests, including the Savoy Forest, were certified by Scientific Certification Systems Inc, in August 2004. SCS evidently had difficulty in massaging the state public bodies through the certification process: of the 17 'conditions' which SCS had attached to the certificate between 2002, when assessment began, and 2004, only two conditions had been 'closed out' by the time the certificate was issued...[Continue]

Galician environmental group Verdegaia and a confederation of 300 environmental groups from Spain have demanded that the the FSC certificate of eucalyptus plantation company NORFOR should be immediately cancelled.

As FSC-Watch has previously reported, the certificate has already been the subject of a formal complaint. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in no action by FSC - though FSC continues to maintain the fiction that it has an effective complaints procedure...[Continue]

The FACE Foundation, a Dutch carbon offset company, claims on its website that its tree planting projects at Mount Elgon and Kibale national parks in Uganda are both certified by FSC. While Mount Elgon is FSC certified (despite major, ongoingland disptues), the FACE Foundation's project at Kibale is no longer FSC certified...[Continue]

During the 1990s, Clayoquot Sound was the site of the largest anti-logging protests in Canada's history. Today FSC certification is legitimising industrial-scale logging in Clayoquot Sound.

FSC-watch recently received the photographs below of logging in Clayoquot Sound. The company involved is Ecotrust Canada, FSC-certified by SmartWood in 2006. "At the core of it all," says Kent Goodyear of Ecotrust, "we encourage the notion of people relating to where they live, and trying to live in a sustainable manner. This is the underlying principle that makes FSC a valuable conservation tool in my work."

The photographs came with the following note:

"How does this warrant FSC certification? It is a recipe for blowdown and slides on these weatherbeaten coastal mountains, not to mention the drastic loss of salmon...[Continue]

It is customary in many organisations to give out-going staff a photo-album showing the person's accomplishments, for them to cherish in future years. We can't do that for Heiko Liedeker, who is finally departing as FSC Executive Director, but what we would like to do with this posting is to show some of what has gone so badly wrong in the past - and what we expect the new Executive Director to put right.

We invite our readers to submit any other photographs that they would like to contribute!

Click on the image for an even clearer picture of what FSC has certified...[Continue]

World Rainforest Movement expresses strong criticism of the FSC in its statement reacting to the news that Veracel's monoculture eucalyptus plantations are now FSC certified. WRM notes that Veracel is the "last piece in a chain of failures" by FSC.

At the time of the company's assessment by SGS in September 2007, WRM warned that the possible certification of Veracel placed FSC 'at the crossroads'...[Continue]